First let me state, again, I don't care about the who stole from who thing, DS9 and B5 are my two all time favorite shows, s, this is merely a curiosity, because it is an incredible coincidence

Sheridan took his Sunday Drive to Meet Lorien (Aired in November 1998, but, was ready to be aird a year earlier at the end of S4, until TNT saved the show for a S5)
Sisko took a Sunday Dive to hang out with his mother (Aire May 1999)

Did JMS pitch enough about the futur story plans to hint at the ending to his arc? I know his original idea was much different as to the end game for Babylon 5

This is not an attempt to stir up anything, or provide proof of anything, it's just a curiosity, since Sisko ws pretty much set up for his end of Arc with the pilot, and it was pretty similar to the end of Sheridan's arc.

First let me state, again, I don't care about the who stole from who thing, DS9 and B5 are my two all time favorite shows, s, this is merely a curiosity, because it is an incredible coincidence

Sheridan took his Sunday Drive to Meet Lorien (Aired in November 1998, but, was ready to be aird a year earlier at the end of S4, until TNT saved the show for a S5)
Sisko took a Sunday Dive to hang out with his mother (Aire May 1999)

Did JMS pitch enough about the futur story plans to hint at the ending to his arc? I know his original idea was much different as to the end game for Babylon 5

This is not an attempt to stir up anything, or provide proof of anything, it's just a curiosity, since Sisko ws pretty much set up for his end of Arc with the pilot, and it was pretty similar to the end of Sheridan's arc.

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Likewise both series involve the use of a small prototype ship post first season, and using the station(s) to coordinate large fleets of different races against a threat coming from far away. Not trying to stoke a flame war, but the similarities between the shows go much further than the pilot episodes.

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@Jan: I've heard most of those similarities before, but those are really superficial, they aren't even really similar if you look at the execution of those ideas.

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With that i fully agree, those are only superficial and in the end not important.

I'm surprised that those are the points, jms used to make his case while there are (or at least so it seems to me) much bigger issues of the themes i mentioned previously, which are important to the initial situation of B5 and also are at the core of DS9 before the Dominion arc was introduced.

The phenomenon of TV copying each other is well known. Last year there were two Beauty & the Beast shows in contention. Serial killers seem to be the big thing this year. For next season, there are two shows where the gimmick is that Dracula, Frankenstein et al are in the same story.

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And of course there's the Canadian series Cold Squad which somehow gave birth to the American series Cold Case. Although in that case, the makers of the original show actively considered SUING those who made the 'other' (but did not actually do it).

Why should I care if some show steals from another? That's for the lawyers to sort out.

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Perhaps we shouldn't care. Of course, our perspective as fans is likely to be different from those of the creators themselves. When answering the question "so what?" if DS9 stole from him, JMS wrote this back when both shows were on the air:

If we allow for the moment, just the moment and no more, that perhaps it did happen as I and others think it might have happened...that Paramount influenced the development of DS9 to co-opt B5....

Imagine that you have just spent five years building a custom car. And before you can even take it out of the garage, someone nabs it. And every day thereafter, they drive it up and down your street, and everyone talks about what a great car it is, and how the other car you still have is okay, and should't we be happy that the neighborhood has *both* cars to look at?

And if you commented on it, and someone told you, "so what?" I wonder what your reaction would be.

I think Hopstaken's timeline is a little off. Babylon 5 was already in its first season when the Chris-Craft stations decided to pull out of PTEN and form the core of UPN.

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Also I dont recall DS9 being affiliated with PTEN, it was a syndicated show that was shown on independent stations ( some of whom did join WB and UPN) I don't see a mention of Paramount in Wiki about PTEN just Warner Bros and Chris-Craft. Paramount and Warner did join forces to form the CW, but that was a few years later. And Star Trek Voyager was the show that launched UPN. Maybe the post's author is conflating several events?

First let me state, again, I don't care about the who stole from who thing, DS9 and B5 are my two all time favorite shows, s, this is merely a curiosity, because it is an incredible coincidence

Sheridan took his Sunday Drive to Meet Lorien (Aired in November 1998, but, was ready to be aird a year earlier at the end of S4, until TNT saved the show for a S5)
Sisko took a Sunday Dive to hang out with his mother (Aire May 1999)

Did JMS pitch enough about the futur story plans to hint at the ending to his arc? I know his original idea was much different as to the end game for Babylon 5

This is not an attempt to stir up anything, or provide proof of anything, it's just a curiosity, since Sisko ws pretty much set up for his end of Arc with the pilot, and it was pretty similar to the end of Sheridan's arc.

Click to expand...

Likewise both series involve the use of a small prototype ship post first season, and using the station(s) to coordinate large fleets of different races against a threat coming from far away. Not trying to stoke a flame war, but the similarities between the shows go much further than the pilot episodes.

Click to expand...

Yes they do, but I still maintain that both are good, and it doesn't matter which came first, or whatever the legal ramifications are. For us, the fans, it was a win-win situation.

People who think DS9 is a ripoff simply because it used a space station setting like B5 need to get over it. Other than being space station based, they have little in common.

So what if Paramount was pitched B5, liked the space station setting, and decided to use it for their next Trek show? No one owns such broad concepts, and it makes B5 fans look petulant to still be on about this almost 20 years later.

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Berman and Piller, who actually conceived and developed DS9, had a very different recollection of how it came to be and didn't much appreciate jms's speculations.

Faced with the high media-profile announcement of a sequel series to the extraordinarily popular ST:TNG at a time when B5 was barely greenlighted as a TV movie, Straczynski clearly comprehended the dangers of people coming away with the mistaken impression that B5 was lifted from DS9, and getting the "we were first" story out there seems to have been pretty important.

I think Hopstaken's timeline is a little off. Babylon 5 was already in its first season when the Chris-Craft stations decided to pull out of PTEN and form the core of UPN.

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Also I dont recall DS9 being affiliated with PTEN, it was a syndicated show that was shown on independent stations ( some of whom did join WB and UPN) I don't see a mention of Paramount in Wiki about PTEN just Warner Bros and Chris-Craft. Paramount and Warner did join forces to form the CW, but that was a few years later. And Star Trek Voyager was the show that launched UPN. Maybe the post's author is conflating several events?

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DS9 and B5 were back to back on Wednesday nights on my PTEN Station, which eventually became UPN for Voyager. B5 was carried on PTEN Stations, WB Stations, and I believe some still independent ones.

I think Hopstaken's timeline is a little off. Babylon 5 was already in its first season when the Chris-Craft stations decided to pull out of PTEN and form the core of UPN.

Click to expand...

Also I dont recall DS9 being affiliated with PTEN, it was a syndicated show that was shown on independent stations ( some of whom did join WB and UPN) I don't see a mention of Paramount in Wiki about PTEN just Warner Bros and Chris-Craft. Paramount and Warner did join forces to form the CW, but that was a few years later. And Star Trek Voyager was the show that launched UPN. Maybe the post's author is conflating several events?

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DS9 and B5 were back to back on Wednesday nights on my PTEN Station, which eventually became UPN for Voyager. B5 was carried on PTEN Stations, WB Stations, and I believe some still independent ones.

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Yeah, I saw DS9 on Channel 44 in the SF Bay Area which would become a UPN station ( and later the CW), but I think it was also on Channel 11 which at the time was an ABC affiliate. So I don't think it was part of the PTEN slate.

Also I dont recall DS9 being affiliated with PTEN, it was a syndicated show that was shown on independent stations ( some of whom did join WB and UPN) I don't see a mention of Paramount in Wiki about PTEN just Warner Bros and Chris-Craft. Paramount and Warner did join forces to form the CW, but that was a few years later. And Star Trek Voyager was the show that launched UPN. Maybe the post's author is conflating several events?

Click to expand...

DS9 and B5 were back to back on Wednesday nights on my PTEN Station, which eventually became UPN for Voyager. B5 was carried on PTEN Stations, WB Stations, and I believe some still independent ones.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I saw DS9 on Channel 44 in the SF Bay Area which would become a UPN station ( and later the CW), but I think it was also on Channel 11 which at the time was an ABC affiliate. So I don't think it was part of the PTEN slate.

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Yea, KBHK was what I was talking about as well. Was DS9 carried on 11 as well? I don't remember that, was that the weekend airing? (KBHK CH44, I believe was carried on Ch12, though)

DS9 and B5 were back to back on Wednesday nights on my PTEN Station, which eventually became UPN for Voyager. B5 was carried on PTEN Stations, WB Stations, and I believe some still independent ones.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I saw DS9 on Channel 44 in the SF Bay Area which would become a UPN station ( and later the CW), but I think it was also on Channel 11 which at the time was an ABC affiliate. So I don't think it was part of the PTEN slate.

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Yea, KBHK was what I was talking about as well. Was DS9 carried on 11 as well? I don't remember that, was that the weekend airing? (KBHK CH44, I believe was carried on Ch12, though)

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Might have been. IIRC, DS9 was shown before or after the PTEN block, which is why it was back to back with B5.

DS9 was straight syndication, so it was often on stations with PTEN shows, because PTEN only had 4 hours a week of programming at its max. If you saw Voyager on that station it was likely one of the Chris-Craft ones. Chris-Craft itself had put up a lot of money for season one; in season two the stations themselves had to make up that difference when the company backed UPN instead. A lot of other independent stations were added at that time. Since UPN and WB didn't have full week schedules at the time either it was possible to see all the UPN/PTEN/WB shows mixed on the same channel.

The phenomenon of TV copying each other is well known. Last year there were two Beauty & the Beast shows in contention. Serial killers seem to be the big thing this year. For next season, there are two shows where the gimmick is that Dracula, Frankenstein et al are in the same story.

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Then there's all the various fairy tale/mythology/fantasy shows around right now, what with Grimm, Once upon a Time, and Lost Girl.

What I'm curious about is: If DS9 did co-opt any of B5, what was the ultimate harm, if any? Were there any specific ideas that JMS wanted to use on B5 that he was forced to abandon because DS9 beat him to the punch? If not, I don't see what the big deal is. Both shows had very long runs.

And if it's any consolation, this summer the Phoenix ComicCon is having a huge Babylon 5 20th anniversary cast reunion. OTOH, no one seems to give a crap about DS9's 20th. The only DS9 actors we've ever gotten here in Phoenix are Michael Dorn (kinda doesn't count) and Chase Masterson. (I miss Chase Masterson. She flirted with me. I know it was merely professional flirting to try to get me to buy her movie and her CD, but still... damn.)